Those Who Venture Into Space
by Suisan
Summary: How did the Columbia accident affect the team? From the tribute 'zine, High Flight, whose proceeds went to the Children of Columbia Scholarship Fund.


Those Who Venture Into Space

By Suisan "Sue" R.

February 2003

For AllGen Press 'Zine "High Flight"

A Tribute to the Men and Women of Columbia.

Released - March 2005

* * *

_Almighty Ruler of the All,_

_Whose power extends to great and small,_

_Who guides the stars with steadfast law,_

_Whose least creation fills with awe;_

_Oh, grant Thy mercy and Thy grace,_

_To those who venture into space._

Robert A. Heinlein_, An Ordeal In Space,_ 1951

* * *

The Colonel, even the General, is glaring at me from across the briefing room table, probably because I'm fidgeting. I _never_ fidget. I take detailed notes, start roughing out my written reports, work on complex theories in my head but I don't fidget. Normally. That's Danny's department, he's usually so wound up after a mission that he's a restless bundle of energy during our debriefings. I send an apologetic half smile toward my commanders, even one toward Teal'c who is watching me like I'm not who he thinks I am, but I can't stop the actions of my leg under the table.

Nervous Knee Syndrome, that's what Janet called it one day when I asked her about this little quirk of mine, an edgy uncontrolled response of my body when my hands are occupied but my mind is racing at mach 1. Nothing to worry about, medically speaking, as several hundred people in the Colorado Springs area have this problem but that doesn't stop it from being a trifle annoying to those around me. Especially when my bouncing knee is actually causing the table to quiver a bit.

Listening to the Colonel give his rough estimate of the world we'd just returned from, I glance at my watch and my knee actually starts bouncing faster.

"Excuse me, Colonel." General Hammond's voice cuts through the room with a soft south Texas drawl. "Major, are we keeping you from something?"

I jump in my chair, my knees hitting the underside of the table, causing the darn thing to rise off the floor and cups of coffee and water nearly spill. "What?" Oh, that was brilliant, Sammie.

"Carter, you're as nervous as a raw recruit… what's up?" Trust Jack O'Neill to cut to the chase.

"Sorry, sirs… it's just that…" I shrug, wondering how to word what I need to say, then give up and just say it. "The Columbia is due to return to the Cape this morning and I was hoping to try out my new telemetry equipment by watching their re-entry glide path."

General Hammond doesn't, quite, laugh out loud at my statement, but an amused smile does cross his face. Colonel O'Neill isn't quite as subtle. He does laugh, and shake his head, and brings a hand up to cover his mouth in an attempt to stifle his entertainment at my expense. Teal'c looks slightly … puzzled … by my statement's affect on our team leader and commanding officer whereas Daniel actually looks excited about my desire to watch the shuttle landing. I wonder about that, until I recall that he told me, just over two weeks ago, after returning from a fact-finding mission in Florida that he'd had the opportunity to watch the Columbia's launch.

Having been in the Air Force so long, and having given up on joining the Shuttle Program back in '86, it never occurred to me that there were actually people who had never seen a live launch of our shuttles but there were. I'd watched several while stationed at McDill Air Force Base, but that launch was Daniel's first.

"Major, when is the shuttle due to hit their re-entry window?"

This time I don't try to hide it when I look at my watch before answering the General's question. "In about 84 minutes, Sir."

"Colonel, do we need anything more from the Major or would it be safe to let her, hmmm, attend to her upcoming equipment test?"

The Colonel looks across the polished oak surface, his eyes meeting mine and twinkling with barely concealed amused indulgence. "Oh, I dunno…" What ever he was going to say was quickly stifled as two glares reach crossways over the table. "Oh, hell. Go, Carter and take Daniel with you." I leap to my feet, gathering my notes hastily and stuffing them into a pocket binder even as Danny rises and copies my actions. "And Daniel? Make yourself useful to Sam."

"Jack?"

"Take notes or something."

I smile at Danny as he nods in wry acknowledgement of Jack's 'order' and then we skip out of the briefing room, pausing outside I wait for the door to close before saying anything to him. "I've got to get these notes down to my lab, grab my laptop, get up to Control so I can hook into NORAD's tracking system…"

"Sam! Just do what you need to and I'll meet you in Control in thirty minutes."

We grin at each other in mutual enthusiasm for about two seconds, before we each take off at a run to take care of our errands before indulging in our guilty little pleasures.

* * *

I couldn't just plug into NORAD's tracking system, even with my security clearance, but when I asked the Duty Officer in Tracking Control if I could, he granted my request without question. So I figure one of two things could have happened; one, either the DO knew of me or my reputation (unlikely as I didn't recognize his name) or, two, someone called upstairs ahead of me and arranged for cooperation between our two commands. I'm pretty sure the second option is more likely and my analytical mind supplies the General's name as the possible "someone" who smoothed my path.

I've just finished connecting the tracking computer in SGC to its mate upstairs and plugging in my untried telemetry soft and hardware when Danny comes into Control at a fast walk. "Hey, Sam, what's the status?"

I glance over at the main tracking screen before answering, "Shuttle should be firing their breaking thrusters soon, their entry window is over the Pacific, just this side of Hawaii."

Danny follows my gaze over to the tracking monitor, taking off his glasses, cleaning them with a soft cloth before placing them back on his face. "Okay, call me stupid but exactly _when_ will that happen?"

Rubbing a hand across my forehead to relax the muscles there, I let out a quite chortle. There are times I forget that astrophysics isn't Danny's area of specialty, probably because he tends to pick up on things so fast. I look up at the large face-clock on the wall above the window that looks out into the Gate Room; it's 0605hrs. "About ten minutes from now."

He doesn't seem to know what to do immediately but eventually, after finding a cup of coffee somewhere in the back of the room, Danny settles into a chair in front of the tracking monitor, while I start collecting data on my laptop from the two connected computers. I'll be one of the first people to admit that watching the drop path of a shuttle as it falls through the atmosphere isn't exactly exciting, but the data I'm gathering may help upgrade the system at NASA or even upstairs. If it works.

The Columbia is just about two minutes from passing over from the ocean to dry land, over California, when my laptop starts to produce the image I've been waiting for on the laptop in front of me. I just manage to capture the track on my hard drive when the shuttle crosses over the west coast. Out of sheer curiosity, and because I can, I tap into the communications net between the Cape and the Johnson Space Center and STS-107, placing it on the speaker even as Sgt. Davis comes into the room. It doesn't take long before Davis has tapped into another feed from JSC and I figure he's listening to the technicians monitoring the equipment on the shuttle, after all, he's done that before when we've watched shuttle landings together.

I'm listening with half an ear when something Davis says grabs my attention. "That can't be good…"

"What?" Danny asks before I can.

"I just heard a couple of techs at JSC say something about a temperature spike that seemed out of place." Before either of us can think of anything else to ask, Davis holds up his hand and presses the earpiece he's monitoring, his face going white. "Damn it…"

I slide the laptop further onto the counter as I stand up and cross over to stand next to Davis, but behind Daniel, my eyes glued to the larger monitor. "What's going on, Sergeant?"

"Report of a higher temperature spike, left side of the ship, above the wing – cabin temperature seems stable though."

"Is it an external reading?"

"They don't seem to be sure, Major."

The shuttle's over Nevada, falling fast toward New Mexico and Texas in its normal unpowered glide to land in Florida, when a tone sounds out from my laptop. Crossing back over to where I had been sitting, wondering what triggered the alarm and if I had made sure to clear enough space on my hard drive, I fall into my chair when I realize what I'm seeing. "Oh shit…"

"Sam?" Daniel's behind me, concern coloring his tone of voice.

"They're drifting of course, pulling to the right."

"JSC reports the autopilot is striving to make course corrections." Davis' voice sounds confident, like he's sure the computer on board the shuttle can do its job.

I shake my head, "Too extreme, they're already off course by nearly 15 degrees, I'm not sure the autopilot can compensate." The shuttle is passing over west Texas, if the correction can't be made before they get into airspace over Louisiana we may be about to watch the first attempt to ditch, make an emergency landing, of a shuttle in the ocean.

Danny's hand crosses into my peripheral vision as he points up at a different monitor screen. "What the hell is that?"

The screen he's pointing at is a high-end Doppler radar, which had been showing a perfectly clear day across most of the southern United States but is now showing a very odd track of reds and yellows across west Texas and into Louisiana. "Oh my god…" My hand slaps over my mouth as I suddenly realize what I have to be seeing and trying to deny it.

"JSC, NASA and the Cape have just reported losing all contact with the Columbia."

Silence falls into the room like a super silent explosion going off as I watch those damning streaks of fire trace across the Doppler monitor and a lone voice starts calling out over the speakers.

"Columbia, Houston, do you read? Come in Columbia."

"Columbia, Houston, do you read? Come in Columbia."

They have to have the same information on their monitors, they have to know, so why are they allowing the communications officer to keep calling for the Columbia? My hand is shaking as I reach over to turn off the speakers, I can't listen anymore, but I miss the switch as Danny's hand closes over mine and Davis turns off the speakers from his station. "Columbia, Houston, do you…"

* * *

By 0720hrs, I've sent my data to NASA using a secure courier. The Columbia was a no-show at the Cape four minutes prior to my dispatching a Security Officer with my data packet with strict instructions as to whom he's allowed to turn the information over to once he gets to the Johnson Space Center. I waited in the Control room until I heard NASA had finally declared an emergency and I sent up a prayer that somehow, someway, the information I had gathered in a flurry of activity would help the space agency figure out what had happened. I have no prayers for possible survivors from the accident, just ones that the crew didn't suffer in their deaths and then I just had to get out of the room.

I'm back in my lab, going over my personal copy of the tracking data, hoping against all hope to see a missile trace or something that will explain to me what the hell happened to the Columbia besides what's going through my mind. Listening to a radio is damn near impossible when your office is buried far below a mountain, so I'm listening to my favorite classical music station via a computer link as I study the information over and over and over again.

If everything I'd planned for in my Air Force career had gone the way I wanted it to, I wouldn't be here at SGC, I'd be a part of the Shuttle Program. There's even a chance I would've been on the Columbia. But another shuttle disaster, the Challenger explosion, had halted the program for two years and I was pretty much forced to take a different career path. I don't regret my choice, I've had far more adventures here with the SGC than I could have had with NASA, and I've been able to actually use my astrophysics skills better here than I could've with the program.

The soothing sounds of a Lou Harrison composition end abruptly, drawing my attention away from the stream of information scrolling up the screen in front of me.

"We apologize for this break in programming, but we have an update on the incident involving the space Shuttle Columbia this morning that took place over east Texas … Several eyewitnesses from Texas, Louisiana and parts of southern Arkansas report hearing several large explosive-like sounds and seeing what appeared to be multiple streaks of fire in the early morning skies. The timing of these reports seem to match the time that NASA admits to losing contact with the shuttle. We've just learned that the flags at the Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, the Johnson Space Center, and NASA headquarters just outside of Houston have been lowered to half-mast. This seems to be an indication that they no longer have any hopes of finding survivors from the shuttle. We're hoping for a more formal statement from NASA and will bring further updates at that time."

Tears blinding my eyes, I reach over and turn off the sound to the computer, knowing I can't listen to any more news like that. Not yet. It's only been 160 minutes since I watched something that will probably linger in my brain for life and give me nightmares even longer.

All activity in the base pretty much came to a halt once word got out that we'd lost the shuttle and seven members of the space exploration community and, while I won't admit to running away, the fact that there isn't a TV in the base that isn't broadcasting (over and over in ad nauseum) shaky videos of the Columbia's breakup is the reason I'm hiding in my lab and office. No, that's not what I told the General or even Colonel O'Neill when they asked. I told them I was going to go over the data my experimental equipment had gathered on the … damn, _incident_ just doesn't cover it but I don't want to call it a disaster either. Disasters have a nasty tendency to shut down exploration programs for years, whereas if I call it an incident, maybe the remaining three shuttles will resume normal operations by June. And maybe, just maybe, this incident will get NASA to look at other reusable space craft designs like the Delta Clipper.

Trying to focus once more on the data, I wipe the moisture left behind by tears I didn't realize had fallen just as soft knock taps on the door of my sanctuary. Combing my fingers through my hair, trying to settle the unruly strands, I pause to dab at my face once more to hopefully erase any trace of the tears I've shed before I cross the floor and open the steel portal.

"Carter?" He's standing there, with an expression on his face that tells me he's hurting as much inside as I am and there's a damn good chance that he knows what I'm going through. "You all right?" I shake my head even as I step back and wave him into my private sanctum within the burrows of Star Gate Command. He glances over at the computer, which is running the glide path of the ill-fated orbiter again, before turning to face me again as his hands flutter uselessly at his side. "Find anything yet?"

"No." I bitterly admit, "I don't think there is anything for me to find, beyond what I already told mission control…"

He nods, "I heard they ruled out a terrorist attack PDQ – your doing?" I just shrug. "You did right, Sam. They needed to know that information ASAP and Hammond agreed that you had an obligation to tell the people at NASA what you discovered."

"I just couldn't stand hearing the speculations, which Davis relayed from the Space Command technicians, that the orbiter may have been taken out by some sort of missile." I move to squeeze past him, to gain access to my information again, and start the radar loop again. "If you watch, you can tell nothing came _at_ the shuttle, but you can see the exact time when it started to fall apart…" I break off as he reaches out and, with a few keystrokes, stops the playback and shuts down the computer.

"Enough of this, Carter." I stare at him, wanting to yell he has no right to stop my research, my quest to see what happened to the crew of Columbia … but he does. "When did you last eat?"

"What?" Where did that question come from?

He doesn't answer right away, just reaches out and picks up the cup of coffee I had near my workstation and sticks his finger in it. "Thought so, any colder and there'd be ice forming in this." Walking over to the small sink in the corner of my lab, he pours the whole cup down the drain, rinses it out and places the container upside down on the edge so it can dry out. "You've been down here too long by yourself, let's get you out of here and get something for you to eat and maybe grab some fresh air."

I shake my head, not wanting to eat and not wanting to stop what I'm doing, but he doesn't take no for an answer. Just carefully grabs me by the elbow and gently leads me out of my cubbyhole to face the rest of the SGC. I should resent this, and I probably would if it was anyone else but him taking command of the situation and making sure that I don't neglect my own well-being. Even in my off-duty hours, Colonel Jack O'Neill could give me a command and I'd follow it to the best of my ability. If he was charging the gates of hell, he wouldn't have to order me to follow for I'd be right on his heels. I trust him more than I trust myself … and that's kinda scary.

* * *

The mess hall isn't quiet, but it's damn close. There are three televisions spaced around the room and most of the base personnel present in the mess are clustered around them, watching and listening to the newscasts as they play, again and again, the films showing the apparent break up of the Columbia over east Texas. I'm trying to block out the sounds and concentrate on anything but what I'm hearing, and studying chow hall food only lasts so long before you realize you shouldn't study it too closely.

Jack had stood behind me in the chow line, 'suggesting' certain hot, cold and sweet items I should eat – reminding me of my Training Instructor who used to stand behind the officer candidates who needed to either drop or gain weight – as I picked a few items out and then looked for a table as far from the televisions as I could find.

We sat in silence for a while, both of us just picking at our meals, neither of us seemed to be interested in eating. Just when I thought I could make my excuses and get back to my hiding, uh, research, we're joined by Daniel and Teal'c who have apparently stopped by for lunch themselves.

No words are spoken, no inquiries to sit or invites, they not needed, we four have worked as a team too long not to be 100 comfortable with each other and welcome each other's company. Even in times like today.

"Major Carter, I trust the investigation into the mishap is going well?" Teal'c asked after clearly paying attention to the news broadcasts.

I shrug before answering, "As well as it can at this time, Teal'c."

"I do not understand. Have they not figured out what happened?"

Danny shakes his head and looks like he wants to answer the question, but Jack beats him to the punch. "Teal'c, it's not that simple. They have a lot of information to go through, they have a debris field they have to organize a search of, and once NASA finds all the pieces their investigators will have to try to reconstruct what actually may have happened."

"And this cannot be done quickly?"

"It's going to take quite a bit of time, Teal'c." I answer.

"We will know the answer in a week?"

"No, Teal'c." Daniel jumps in, "It's going to be a long time, maybe a year."

"That does not make sense. When something like this happened while I was in Apophis' service, our investigators had answers within hours and had corrected the problem on other gliders within a few days."

"We don't have the same resources as the Gou'ald System Lords." But that doesn't stop me from wishing we did. "The first priority will be to recover the crew, then they have to find the shuttle parts…" The sheer size of the recovery effort hits me and I clam up, but Danny's there to step into the sudden silence.

"Think of it as a large archaeology effort, Teal'c."

"I understand now. Thank you, Daniel Jackson."

* * *

After a few minutes of silence had past, I got up from the table, made my excuses to my teammates, slowly made my way out of the mess hall and eventually found myself standing just inside the entrance of the Cheyenne Mountain complex. I'm not even aware how I got here, I must have wandered the halls in the bowel of the installation, taking turn after turn until I somehow, someway, ended up here.

The air coming in through the large tunnel is chilly, but not unbearably so, and I will my body to ignore the cold breeze as I walk out the entrance, barely acknowledging the salute tossed my direction by the security policemen manning the gate.

I need this. To be outside, chilling my body so badly I no longer realize where the chill in my soul starts and the nippiness on my skin begins. I want to be numb. I don't want to feel the emotions, the heartache and the rage building within me. I need to be detached. Clinical. Scientific. Dispassionate. Or I won't be able to return to my lab and get back to work on the project sitting idle on my computers. A project that I suddenly find myself not wanting to return to anymore, not when it seems all so hopeless.

Wandering around the outer perimeter of the complex, staying just inside the fence line, I realize I'm looking for a path, which should lead up the outside of the mountain looming above me. Once I find it, I begin to climb upwards, the trail easy at first, becoming more and more difficult as I near the summit. Reaching my destination, I stand in the clearing and wonder who from the base below had placed a large and pretty powerful telescope up here.

Curiosity beckons me to examine the telescope, even though at this time of day I have no chance of seeing whatever the owner was studying in the heavens. Carefully, I remove the clear plastic cover from the highly polished item, then the aperture cover on the gathering end and, finally, the eyepiece cover and peer inside. Nothing but clear blue sky meets my inquisitive eye but I start to wonder about the angle the telescope is aimed. At night, even one that was crystal clear, the viewer would be battling light pollution for the aperture is aimed a little too low on the horizon. Anyone who could afford this powerful of a telescope would know that and probably wouldn't waste their time trying to study the starry vault above through light pollution. Bending slightly to look through the device once more, I watch as a jet crosses my field of vision and disappears. Very strange. Using the same care I used to uncover the telescope, I replace the protective covers, but not before I spot something I didn't notice before.

A small brass plate, attached to the long tube, probably with an adhesive as I don't see any mounting rivets, proudly tells all who might find it just who it belongs to. I should have known. I burnish the plate free of smudges with the cuff of my BDU long-sleeved shirt, and then drape the plastic cover over the telescope once more. Spying a nearby fallen log, I walk over to sit on it and wonder about what the Colonel could have been studying through his telescope. The sound of a twig snapping somewhere behind me causes me to stand up and spin around, only to see him standing there.

"Carter." His greeting is succinct, and short, but I've come to expect that from him.

"Colonel." Why do I feel like I'm invading his privacy just by being here, in this clearing?

"You, uh, like my 'scope?" He waves his hand to indicate the only mechanical item in this natural setting.

"It's very impressive, sir." I bite my lower lip, trying to stop the words threatening to spill from my mouth, but my curiosity will not be squelched. "What star system are you studying at such a low elevation, sir?"

"I'm not." He paces over the leaf strewn ground, missing the few spots that still have snow cover, with such predatory skill that I know he purposely broke silence earlier to give me a warning of someone approaching. With a grace, which belies the knee that occasionally gives him fits, he sits on the log near where I'd been sitting and then gestures for me to sit down again. So I do, not sure if I'm about to get a lecture about touching stuff that doesn't belong to me or if he's going to explain why he set up such an expensive item in a lonely clearing. Silence stretches out between us, but it's a comfortable calm between friends so I start to relax knowing, somehow, that I'm not going to get a dreaded lecture. "I was up here, watching them, Sam. I watched as it all started to go wrong. It was like watching a car sliding on ice, knowing there was nothing I or anyone could do to stop it but I couldn't take my eye off them. I wanted to, I wanted to close my eyes and beg for it to be a bad dream, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't shut my eyes, or quit watching as those brave men and women started to die in front of my horrified gaze."

Oh shit. Even as Danny, Davis and I watched the orbiter break up on our monitors, the Colonel was up here, watching the whole thing in living color. No wonder he tracked me down in my lab and dragged me out of there to eat and be around others. He needed a cover story and I had willingly given him one. He probably hadn't eaten since watching the incident and, knowing he needed to and that I probably hadn't eaten either, he came and pulled me out of my sanctuary thus giving him an excuse to hover. Standing behind me in the chow line, making sure I tried to eat by tempting me with selections he thought I'd find interesting, all under the mantle of command, taking care of one of his team members. Using me, and my emotional plight, to try to resurrect his sense of control and I didn't realize it at the time. How dense is that?

"Sir, if it's any consolation … I don't think the crew suffered."

"But we don't know, do we?"

"No, sir, we don't."

"I hope they didn't."

"Me too, sir."

We sit in silence again. Just two lost souls on a high mountain summit, suffering our separate emotions together but in a way that we don't intrude in each other's grief. I'm pretty sure we're not alone in our misery, that there are scenes just like this being played out all over the world, but for a little while I allow myself to pretend that it's just me and Jack O'Neill mourning the passing of a courageous crew. Seven men and women from India, Israel and the United States who lost their lives doing something they loved.

END


End file.
